Blue Windows

I love when I find things for the store that I know right away are a PERFECT fit! When I found these key chains made from recy­cled spoons I knew I had to get them for the store. They are the per­fect lit­tle sen­ti­ment gift for Valentine’s Day! The day they came in I imme­di­ately fell in love with them and replaced the key­chain I per­son­ally have had for almost 10 years.  I chose “PRAY” to remind me to take the time, wher­ever I am or what­ever I’m doing, to pray.

“Let’s Spoon”, “I Love You”, “Giggle”,

“Cherish the Journey”, “Love Love Love”,“Have Faith”

$24.00 each

2010 is offi­cially gone! I am sure it is no sur­prise to any­one that it was a rough year. I bat­tled many hard deci­sions and truly came to appre­ci­ate the term “labor of love”. I do love my store. I love that each day brings some­thing new. Whether it’s cre­ativ­ity, meet­ing a new cus­tomer, greet­ing an old one, sift­ing through mounds of cat­a­logues, think­ing of a bril­liant idea & the next day hav­ing none and even rain the week before Christmas! I have come to terms with lov­ing it through all its phases, good and bad.

2011 will be a great year! I am ready for the ups and downs and will try to embrace both with the atti­tude of thank­ful­ness. Last year I chose 12 char­i­ties each month to donate a por­tion of my prof­its. Every month we changed the win­dow dis­play to pro­mote each char­ity. This became a bit hard. Four weeks went by way too fast. I would con­sis­tently feel like we JUST put the win­dow up and now it needs to be torn down for some­thing new. I learned about many orga­ni­za­tions in the process and was really grate­ful to be able to help in some small way. This year I decided I will choose four char­i­ties, one per quar­ter. This will pro­vide more recog­ni­tion to each char­ity and will be able to ben­e­fit them more finan­cially as well. The first char­ity is Hearts Without Boundaries. 10% of the store’s prof­its will be donated to them January-March. I will write more about them and why I chose them in my next blog post. KIT.

I also wanted to bring a fresh idea to Blue Windows this year so I decided to do vin­tage fur­ni­ture and jew­elry. I know it’s not a “new” idea but it is for the store. I think it will make my job a bit more inter­est­ing. I will try to find the “finds” but don’t ask me where because I will be shop­ping all over (per­haps even out of state) and most places will be a secret. No good buyer gives up their sources!  I hope my cus­tomers like it!

Here’s some of my first finds…

and my favorite…

Thank you to all my cus­tomers for the sup­port in 2010.

Heather